Letter: Let's band together to save SS, Medicare

I wish Gov. Scott Walker, Rep. Paul Ryan, Sen. Ron Johnson and all their billionaire financiers would stop terrorizing our elderly, our young, and the majority of folks in between with their bold lies about Social Security and Medicare.

There is no Social Security crisis! One former Treasury secretary states that, of the last $3 trillion workers deposited into the Social Security Trust Fund, only $1 trillion went to Social Security itself. The U.S. military alone has stolen $80 billion yearly to finance its imperialist wars in the Mideast.

Likewise, although I personally consider Obamacare a gift to the insurance industry (with United Healthcare's head still getting $125 million yearly), if Walker refuses to accept $12 billion in federal aid to Medicaid over the next 10 years, 220,000 poor and middle-class citizens will be deprived of health insurance and 10,000 jobs will not be created.

Ultimately, though, Obamacare is wasteful, complicated and still forces employer-financing. Like every other industrialized country from Canada to Chinese Taiwan, we need a single payer health care system that would save $1 trillion yearly from our current system of 43 million uninsured citizens with most of the rest paying huge premiums, co-pays, and deductibles. Even Forbes Magazine - "the capitalist tool" - has a lead article endorsing single-payer.

If everyone who tied a ribbon around a tree to support the Iraq war had instead placed a banner or sign in their yard reading "Save Social Security. Medicare for All," we would have saved $5 trillion, one million uninsured citizens would still be alive, and millions in the Mideast would have escaped injury and death.

I encourage everyone to put just such a sign or banner in their yard. Encourage politicians to speak out forcefully for Social Security and Medicare for All. Urge local council and board members to propose and adopt similar solutions. Write letters. Call people. Let's build a large local coalition of business people, workers, farmers, the elderly, the young, the disabled, and minorities possibly even including a public rally and/or march. Questions? Call 715-496-0185).

Mike Nigbor

Stevens Point

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Letter: Let's band together to save SS, Medicare

I wish Gov. Scott Walker, Rep. Paul Ryan, Sen. Ron Johnson and all their billionaire financiers would stop terrorizing our elderly, our young, and the majority of folks in between with their bold

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